“Bah!” Dick had barely time to throw up his arm and ward off the cushion that the disgusted Torpenhow heaved at his head.
“Air and exercise indeed,” said the Nilghai, sitting down heavily on Dick.
“Let’s give him a little of both. Get the bellows, Torp.”
At this point the conference broke up in disorder, because Dick would not open his mouth till the Nilghai held his nose fast, and there was some trouble in forcing the nozzle of the bellows between his teeth; and even when it was there he weakly tried to puff against the force of the blast, and his cheeks blew up with a great explosion; and the enemy becoming helpless with laughter he so beat them over the head with a soft sofa cushion that that became unsewn and distributed its feathers, and Binkie, interfering in Torpenhow’s interests, was bundled into the half-empty bag and advised to scratch his way out, which he did after a while, travelling rapidly up and down the floor in the shape of an agitated green haggis, and when he came out looking for satisfaction, the three pillars of his world were picking feathers out of their hair.
“A prophet has no honour in his own country,” said Dick, ruefully, dusting his knees. “This filthy fluff will never brush off my legs.”
“It was all for your own good,” said the Nilghai. “Nothing like air and exercise.”
“All for your good,” said Torpenhow, not in the least with reference to past clowning. “It would let you focus things at their proper worth and prevent your becoming slack in this hothouse of a town. Indeed it would, old man. I shouldn’t have spoken if I hadn’t thought so. Only, you make a joke of everything.”
“Before God I do no such thing,” said Dick, quickly and earnestly. “You don’t know me if you think that.”
I don’t think it,” said the Nilghai.
“How can fellows like ourselves, who know what life and death really mean, dare to make a joke of anything? I know we pretend it, to save ourselves from breaking down or going to the other extreme. Can’t I see, old man, how you’re always anxious about me, and try to advise me to make my work better? Do you suppose I don’t think about that myself? But you can’t help me—you can’t help me—not even you. I must play my own hand alone in my own way.”